Mimic Mike mocks the competition

If his day job as CEO of Irish low-cost carrier Ryanair ever becomes too dull, the fast-talking Michael O’Leary could always consider moonlighting as a stand-up comic.

His fine mimicry of both French and German accents elicited guffaws at a recent Brussels aviation policy pow-wow.

Never one to mince his words, he slammed Air France for forcing passengers to fly over Le Hub – Paris Charles de Gaulle airport – for the sake of being ripped off, complete with those elastic expressions and Gallic shrugs that are oh-so French.

And Lufthansa’s bosses were ridiculed for running around for the past two years saying low fares “vill not vork in Germany” (pronounce vith tick tscherman accent).

But Lufthansa didn’t realize, O’Leary roared, pacing back and forth with clenched fists, that Germans will crawl buck-naked over broken glass to get fares of l40 versus ¿100 or ¿200 from Lufthansa.

OK, some Germans do like to frolic buck-naked poolside whenever they get the chance, but crawling over broken glass?

O’Leary is clearly convinced that his deals are so good, they drive even the rational Germans over ze edge…

There is something splendidly parochial about the state-aid investigation launched last week by the European Commission’s competition department into JC Decaux, a French advertising company. The question …